Technology can make it easier to communicate with parents and others about special education matters, but the convenience of digital communication can also lead to embarrassment and liability.
When securing edtech infrastructure, district leaders must concentrate on six “layers”: physical, network, applications, content, endpoint and cloud/data centers, according to a 2017 report by the Council of the Great City Schools. “More than ever, schools are a ‘wink-wink’ among the industry when it comes to cybersecurity vulnerability” says Robert Dillon, director of innovative learning […]
Whether school system leaders realize it or not, voice-activated, artificial intelligence devices such as Alexa and Google Home are becoming a part of classrooms. “I know of a lot of school districts where teachers use it, and in some districts the [school administrator] knows about it, but in other districts they don’t” says Eileen Belastock, […]
Rose L. Colby’s book Competency-Based Education introduces educators to a new model for anytime, anywhere schooling, and provides curriculum resources for redesigning the traditional structures of our schools. Colby, a competency-based learning and assessment specialist, says seat time doesn’t equal learning. A system based on demonstrating competencies does more to prepare students for higher education […]
Jay County—a rural district in Indiana—has the highest child poverty rate (35 percent) in the state. We’ve suffered like most of the rural areas. While our unemployment rate is just a little over 4 percent, there aren’t a lot of high-paying jobs. Many of them are low-level manufacturing and agriculture jobs, so people are leaving […]
Educators generally agree that we are testing too much. On the heels of No Child Left Behind, we’ve had 15 years of often misguided national and state accountability policies that have only just been rolled back. Driven by a robust parental “opt out” movement, Congress’ latest action puts more authority back with the states. But […]
Parents and educators hailed FERPA, COPPA and the Student Privacy Pledge as significant steps toward securing student data. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that Google, a prominent player in edtech, is already violating those measures. In December, the foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group based in San Francisco, filed a complaint with the Federal […]
The increasing shift to online learning and collaboration has created new concerns around student privacy. Keeping data as secure in the cloud as it would be in a locked file cabinet requires communication, diligence and strong policies. “Privacy is not a new issue but it certainly has risen to the top in part because so […]
